Editor: AL-ḤUǦAIRĪ, MUḤAMMAD (HRSG.)
Beirut (De Gruyter Verlag / Dar al-Farabi) 2021, ISBN 978-3-11-077927-1

The author of the Sukkardān is Šihāb Ad-Din Aḥmad b. Yahya At-Tilmsānī, known as Ibn Abī Ḥaǧala, the distinguished Sufi writer and poet. He was an important figure of the poetic scene in the late Mamluk era and became the favourite poet at the court of Sulṭān Ḥasan b. Muḥammad bin Qalāwūn after he wrote many books for him, including the Sukkardān as-Sulṭān.
The book is structured around two themes around the number “seven”. The first four chapters discuss its relationship and superiority to other numbers. The second theme illustrates the various connections between the number "seven" and the Sulṭān.
The book contains a large amount of narrations and brilliant stories which the author himself considers to be elegant compositions and therefore suitable for their royal audience.
This wonderful intellectual journey can be considered a mirror of the cultural and literary sphere of the reign of Sulṭān Ḥasan and the late Mamluk period in Egypt and the Levant.